Friday, March 13, 2015

Absence makes the heart...

Solmar reservoir is full right now; source of my water.
Have you missed me?

I've missed you, my dear readers. But my life has been significantly challenged with a car that needed a new transmission. Which, once it was fixed, needed to go back in again because the frammis was rubbing up against the jixmas and causing the gears to wobble and they needed to replace the flabgesty so that didn't happen anymore.

(If you didn't understand that, it's because I didn't either... all I know now is that it is finally fixed right.)

These two segments of four-day repairs had me living somewhere other than in my own house with good internet access, so I didn't even try to write here.

Spring has come early to the Olympics and bees are buzzing around all kinds of flowering flowers, shrubs and trees. But our water situation is not good. The mountains only received about 20 percent of the snow required. (It must have all been shipped east to Boston and points north!)

I continue to enjoy the delights of a loving relationship with F and the challenges of it as well.

But if there is anything I am significantly grateful for it is hearing news that my 17-year old grandson is OK after totaling his vehicle yesterday.
Deer are boldly coming into neighborhoods to feed on
new plant growth; they are fearless for the most part.

As I listen to the birds and watch the bees, I realize how precariously we are connected to life and how if this accident had happened in any other way I might be grieving deeply.

And I completely understood how my daughter was feeling, because my own 17-year old son did just that same thing years ago, causing his angels to work overtime as well.

Perhaps boys of 17 should not be driving because they do not appear to have the same abilities to multi-task that girls of that age do. A glance away at something else, just long enough to distract and require over-correction can be the instant of change.

It is a reminder that when we are behind the wheel, whether alone or driving with others, we have a huge responsibility to pay attention to the task at hand - driving. No texting, no getting directions, no passing toys to toddlers, no turning around to see where something is in the back seat, etc.

Bus drivers are not allowed to even have music on their busses because of the potential distraction, and they are carrying upwards of 40 people to their destinations.

There are so many things to pull our attention away... personal concerns, business issues, weather challenges and global news to suggest a few areas. As parents and grandparents we have the obligation to add to our instruction repertoire the importance of staying focused.

"Be here now," not be partly here and partly there... because your absence from my life will make my heart very heavy.






4 comments:

  1. I am so glad that you are writing this post with your grandson still on this earth. It makes me nervous about my own children. I do think 16 is too young to be driving and yes, especially boys.

    I don't quite understand the jixmas and frammis but it sounds like what was wrong my my car 2 weeks ago. The mechanic said something about pribstols and gurtwains. He fixed it, bless his heart.

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  2. Glad that you're happy, honey. Delighted that your grandson is OK! xoxo Nan

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  3. Well, as I remember, you had some events in your teens with cars, and I know I did....17, I can' hardly believe it. I have not met Kate's kids, so I guess I haven't seen her in 20 years? wow. I can assure you as well, the water went to California, not to Massachusetts.... There's a guy In Boston selling snow and shipping it, must be a relative.

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  4. I was impressed to learn from my daughter that her son was recovered enough to sit for his SATs and we shall hear shortly how he did, but just that he could focus enough to go forward makes me doubly grateful for his survival!! Such an incredibly bright young mind... perhaps he really needs a chauffeur. Too bad we are not living in Merrie Ole Englande of the last century or two when hiring a carriage wasn't such a costly thing. So I have doubled the angelic watch over him and his near-brother who is also about to take on solo driving so they may both continue onward safely... I suppose it is indeed the lead-foot gene I worry most about; I was (still am, sad to say) pretty quick as a driver, but at least I'm not distracted by texting while doing it.

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